Longacre Theatre, West 48th Street

The Longacre Theatre is located at 220 West 48th Street, between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, near Times Square. The theater is announcing "will open Aug 11" and a sign on the ground floor façade reads The Silver Wedding. Photograph from the Shubert Organization collection.

Harry H. Frazee and G. M. Anderson were the owners. Frazee acquired the site in 1911 and developed the Longacre Theatre to accommodate musicals. By January 1912, Henry B. Herts had been selected as the architect and he filed plans for the theater that month with the New York City Department of Buildings. The theater was named for the Longacre Square, which was renamed Times Square in 1904.

In August 1912, the theater was near completion and scheduled to open in October. The opening was delayed to November, and the scaffolding in front of the theater was disassembled by October. The theater's completion was delayed on account of strikes and contractors' difficulties. The Longacre eventually opened on May 1, 1913, with Frazee's production of Are You a Crook?

The Silver Wedding was a play by Edward Locke and produced by H. H. Frazee, who built the Longacre Theatre. The play was shown in the Shubert Theatre of St. Louis, Missouri, in February, 1913. This Shubert Theatre was part of the Union Electric Building, which existed from 1910 to 1976, when it was demolished. The play opened in the Longacre Theatre on August 11, the same year, with 16 performances.